27. Kiera
Chapter 27
Kiera
R uen’s body is a mass of jumping muscles and barely restrained violence. He clutches me like I’m a life line and I let him. I have the strangest sensation that if the two of us were set adrift in a stormy sea—if we were drowning—his hold alone would be enough to keep me tied to this plane of existence. As if I can’t die unless he gives me permission.
When next his mouth lands on mine, it’s even harder than before. It’s raw and powerful and crushing. I part my lips, letting him take what he needs and feeding that beast I sense within him.
He’s different from Theos and Kalix. As well as they move together as a unit, each of them is an individual creature with different needs. Kalix is a hungry beast, devouring everything in its path to sate some unknown desire and he won’t stop until he’s drawn the blood of his prey. Theos is a healer, a seeker of love and compassion and affection.
Ruen is neither and he is both. He is the perfect mix of animal and man.
His hips bump against my stomach and I feel the hard press of his erection straining beneath his trousers. My insides turn to liquid in the most molten sense and I reach for the man currently devouring my mouth and every small sound that escapes it.
My nails rake down his back and his hips jerk in pleasure at the sharp sensation, pressing harder against me. The side of the mattress bumps against my calves, but I don’t lie on it. Not yet. Pulling my lips from Ruen’s, I use the mattress as an aid as I climb up his body, hooking my legs around his waist as I grip his head between my hands.
“Show me what you want, Ruen,” I demand. “Show me what you’re so terrified of showing everyone else.”
Blue-red eyes glitter back at me dangerously, the soft fall of his long dark lashes casting shadows over the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He is a barely restrained man, teetering on the knife’s edge of civilized. He doesn’t need civilized. He needs wild and untamed and so do I.
As if he senses that, too, Ruen’s eyes shift from half midnight and half red to fully crimson in an instant. My back slams down against the mattress. He drives me up the cushioned bed reaching for my hands and stealing them away from his flesh. I blink and he pins them above me. Solid metal locks onto my skin and my eyes jerk up, seeking the manacles that now encircle my wrists. Something wicked uncurls within my lower belly. I test the chains that now lock through the heavy wrought iron of the headboard before flicking my attention to the man that prowls over me with more intensity than any animal I ever saw in the Hinterlands.
“These weren’t here before,” I say. Not a question, but then again, I don’t mean it as one. I know what brought them forth, I just never expected Ruen to lose control so completely that he’d use his powers on me during sex.
Ruby colored irises track over my face with dilated pupils blowing out nearly all of the color, leaving behind very little but a small ring of fire. “My illusions are as real as you or I,” Ruen whispers, lowering his lips to my throat. “For as long as I control them, they exist.”
The beast licks over my pulse and then moves down, his fabric covered legs sliding against mine until his mouth touches my collarbone. My nipples pebble harder and I bite down on my lower lip, forcing my need back as it threatens to make my hips buck against him.
It’s when his words enter my ears that I realize Ruen hasn’t lost control at all. No. He’s nothing like Kalix or Theos. He is discipline and dominance, a creature with far more patience than I ever gave him credit for. To lead two other Mortal Gods with such volatile powers and abilities, he’s had to maintain this precision of his and I fell for the false display of instability like a fool.
Sweat beads pop up along my skin as he licks the taste of it from my flesh with a hungry moan. “You taste like salt and sin,” he says.
My stomach muscles contract and I suck in a breath, hollowing out the area as I tug at my restraints. I don’t know how it’s possible, but he’s right about his illusions. It feels more real than the bed itself, more tangible than the illusion I’d felt the day I’d been whipped before the entire Academy.
“Ruen—”
“Shhh,” he hushes me as his mouth descends over one nipple and sucks it between his lips. His teeth sink down against the pale pink flesh and I grit my teeth as my back arches at the pleasure-pain that pours through me.
Little pinpricks of light flash behind my closed eyelids as he tortures my nipple before switching to the other breast and performing the same action. Breathing heavily, I don’t reopen my eyes until he finally, blessedly, lifts his lips, tongue, and teeth away from me—freeing my wet nipple to the now cool air.
“Look at me.” I can’t help but answer that command with a sharp look. There’s no denying it. Ruen’s crimson gaze locks onto my face, searing into my eyes like he’s trying to burn me with just a look.
There’s too much clothing still between us. “ Ruen. ” His name is a groan in my throat. “If you don’t get rid of both of our pants in the next ten seconds, I’m going to?—”
Whatever threat I’d been about to make is swallowed by the sudden rending of fabric. I gape down as Ruen shreds the sides of my trousers before he peels them far too slowly down my long legs. Then his body leaves me as he moves down the mattress until he’s at the end of the bed and he’s able to untie his laces and drop his pants to the floor.
My eyes lock onto the hard shaft that juts out from the ring of dark hair at his crotch. It’s long and thick, with a pulsating vein that arches up the underside. That’s not the only thing that makes me stare open-mouthed though. It’s the series of metal bars that run the length of that veiny underside of male flesh.
“H-how…” The question doesn’t make it past that one word in my throat as Ruen takes himself in hand and strokes the length of his cock once—up and down from root to tip.
“Pain means nothing,” he says by way of an answer, even though I never finished the curiosity. “I had to prove that to myself.”
Rage blossoms in my breast. Another form of self-harm then. I want to chastise him, but the words aren’t there as he slowly climbs back onto the mattress and moves forward like a stalking Hinterland panthera . I can just imagine the hulking cat-like beast inside him. Hungry feline ready for its prey to fall under fang and claw.
Ruen releases his cock and touches my legs. “Open for me, Kiera. Spread your legs and let me into the most Divine of realms.”
If anyone had told me that Ruen Darkhaven would rival both of his brothers in terms of sexual deviancy months ago, I might have laughed at the idea of the cool and indifferent Mortal God being a creature of pure fire and sensuality. Now, I have no other recourse but to follow that command of his, spreading my thighs at the soft touch of his sword-roughened fingers.
My teeth ache to sink into him as my hands curl, my nails digging into my palms as the need to draw blood becomes a burning desire inside me. I pull at my restraints. “Release me,” I growl.
“No.” That’s the only answer I get right before Ruen’s head dips and the harsh rasp of his tongue steals over the bundle of nerves above my core. My legs jerk in shock and then clamp down on either side of his head. Ruen doesn’t miss a beat, gripping my thighs in his palms and slamming them back open, even going so far as to push them slightly up and out so that he has a wider seat for his face to make a meal of my most vulnerable place.
Heat flashes through me, turning my chest a light shade of pink. My head thrashes back and forth and I struggle beneath the illusioned bonds he’s put me under. The moment these damn things are gone, I’m going to wrap my hands around his throat, force his cock inside me, and ride him until I’m cresting the wave of release.
Ruen releases my clit and then drags his teeth down the soft inner flesh of my thigh and then up the other. “Stop fighting me.”
“I’m not submissive,” I tell him through clenched teeth. “If you didn’t want me to fight then you would be beneath me, not the other way around.”
His dark head lifts and his gaze looks up my body, over the valley of my hips and stomach, and between my tightly budded breasts. “You may not be submissive for others,” he concedes, pausing a beat before he continues, “but you will be for me.”
The dry laugh that scrapes out of my throat is anything but amused. It’s a challenge. “No, I won’t.”
When Ruen tilts his head to the side it’s with that same feline grace as the panthera I’d thought him before. One finger slides between my folds and flicks my clit, forcing my body to bow in response. “Yes,” he repeats, “you will.”
Little fractures of power spark through me. My core seizes at the challenge in his tone and my breasts swell with anticipation. For several long, breathless moments, the two of us are tied together like that. Neither of us speaking, both of us wanting, needing, craving more than what the other is willing to give.
Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea. Pushing the iciest of the Darkhavens past his limit was a risk. Now, there is no turning back.
“I should have known that you would bring me to the edge,” Ruen murmurs almost absently, breaking the silence as he moves up my body and then takes a hardened nipple between his teeth.
I gasp with pleasure and then pain as he bites down. My hands close into fists as I crave to clutch at the back of his head. My teeth clamp together while he switches to the other breast and performs the same action all over again, wetting the nipples he’d ignored as he’d teased my core.
In adolescence, when I’d been around many other members of the Underworld—more specifically, the few female members—I’d listened in on their stories of lovers and bed partners. The talk of love had always confused me as it seemed to be equated to the feeling of butterflies in one’s stomach and a strange sort of giddiness that overtook a girl’s mind.
My mind is filled with neither, but instead with cruel talons that scrape around my organs, demanding satisfaction. My pussy clenches with carnal insistence.
Ruen freezes and backs his head away as his eyes slide shut and he groans. “I can fucking smell you .” That admission is pulled from his throat as if the words are being dragged over sharp rocks. His voice is lower than it’s ever been, gravelly in the way that only a man lost to the haze of lust can be.
He opens his eyes and fixes them on me.
“Kiss me,” I growl, giving him an order of my own.
As if he’s possessed by the sudden need, he moves up further until our mouths hover a scant inch from one another. His lips, when they land on mine, taste of me. Just to punish him, I sink my teeth into his bottom lip hard enough to draw both blood and a masculine groan. We are a tangle of teeth and tongue. A clashing storm of two overpowering wills, neither bending for anything save for the other. Feminine delight swims through me as Ruen worships my skin with that fine attention to detail that is something purely him .
Muscles flex as he holds himself above me. With a vicious little grin, I lift my legs and lock my ankles around his hips, feeling the prod of his hard cock against my pussy. “Give me more,” I demand, nuzzling little nipping bites along his throat. “You know you want to.”
A hard grip seizes my hair and rips my head back. Ruen arches a brow down at me. “Do you think you’re in charge here, Kiera?” He shakes his head without waiting for a response. “No, I will take you when and if I decide—not before.”
If? What the fuck does he mean ‘if’ he decides? A snarl threatens to rip free of me. It’s only stopped by the feel of his palm landing against my throat. My whole body goes still, my heart thudding an inconsistent beat against the inside of my ribcage as I realize how trapped I truly am.
His hand holds my hair in his grip, keeping my head immobile as his other hand grips my throat, squeezing tighter and tighter until I can hear the rush of my own blood blasting through my ears. Oddly enough, I can still breathe. Sparkles flicker before my eyes, little visual hallucinations dancing around me like stars. The low, thrumming sound of Ruen’s amusement rumbles from his chest into mine.
“Look at you now, Kiera.” His voice shifts deeper than I’ve ever heard it before. “The great, strong assassin brought so low by her target.”
I try to shake my head. We both know that Ruen was never my target, but … he could have been. They all could have been.
Ruen leans down, setting his teeth on my bottom lip as he tightens his grip and those stars begin spinning. Around and around they go, driving my hazy mind into a distant land.
“Do you know why I don’t fuck around like my brothers?” Ruen asks as he releases me to the taste of my own blood on my tongue.
I’m set adrift on the wind. My insides clenching and unclenching in an unfamiliar need. His hands remain on me as I feel his hips move to lower themselves between my spread open thighs. I arch myself against him, feeling the graze of his cock against my wetness. A groan sears my throat.
“No, not yet.” The hot length of him moves away again and I almost whimper— almost . I’m not that far gone yet.
“I prefer to dominate women who are as powerful as me, if not more so,” Ruen says, answering his own earlier question. “I’ve fucked Goddesses, but few Mortal Gods.” Sharp pain attacks one nipple and I realize he’s stopped talking to bite down on my breast again.
My hips buck. Fuck him. I part my lips to voice that thought, but the hard hand squeezing my throat releases and a heady rush of blood fills my ears once more and all that escapes is a gasp of both pleasure and relief.
Ruen keeps the hand against my head still tangled in my hair as he lowers the other one to the outside of one hip. Then I feel the underside of his shaft drag slowly along my soaked cunt.
This time, I can’t stop the whimper of pure unadulterated need. His responding growl resonates against my nipples and I feel the vibrations all the way down to my throbbing clit.
“I should have known,” Ruen grits out as his hand slides along my outer thigh to my inner thigh and then down. “You would be the one to drive this need out of me.”
I glance up at him through my lashes, begging with my eyes though I won’t with my words. Never . To part my lips and beg him with words would mean to cross a line inside me that I refuse to even go near. The hand in my hair loosens marginally.
“Don’t worry,” he says, face moving to poise over mine. “I won’t take your darkness from you, Kiera. I simply want you to accept mine too.”
Darkness is all I’ve ever known. If he wants to share his with me then that’s something I can do.
The hard ridges of his knuckles bump against my clit and I suck in a sharp breath. He shushes me with a strained but amused smile. “Almost there, sweetheart,” he says as I feel him take himself in hand and line the head of his cock to my entrance. “Almost…”
Feral eyes and an even more feral grin split his face and in the next instant, a scream is ripped from me as he slams into me without any further preamble. My interior muscles make way for the hard length of him, slicked by my own juices, but still shuddering under the sharp too-fast intrusion, and my back bows off the bed.
“Fuck, you’re so tight.” Little shock waves ricochet through my cunt, rippling the muscles up and down the heavy length of him, squeezing down on both his flesh and the metal that pierces him. “So fucking perfect…”
Gasping, heaving, begging for air where there is none, the sparkling stars are back. Lips press into my own.
“Breathe,” Ruen orders. “Breathe for me, sweetheart.”
I do, and with each inhalation, all I can smell is him.
Something dark moves through Ruen’s face. Not an expression or emotion, but something wholly different. “ Release .” The word is a whisper, but it’s all that’s needed to liberate me from the chains holding my hands captive.
The second my wrists are free, my nails are in his flesh, sinking into the skin of his shoulders as I ride the wave of ecstasy that crashes into me. I can feel his cock twitch inside me, pressing those ridges of metal against my inner walls and making the fissures of power spread further inside me. Now that he’s fully seated inside, Ruen’s hand falls to my ass as I cling to his powerful frame and he cups the fleshy underside, gripping tight even as his hips pull back. The motion drags his cock from my depths and then he thrusts back inside with the same crude violence as before.
Fire and glory. That is what we are. Two beings of domination fighting for the right to control the other.
“ Kiera .” I blink at the razor blade of his tone. He glares down at me. “Focus on me.”
I release one shoulder and stroke one hand up into his hair, curling my fingers into the dark, almost inky black of the strands until they disappear completely. “Who else would I focus on but you?”
A fresh scream shoots up my throat as he chooses that exact moment to cant his hips, withdrawing nearly completely from my body and then thrusting his wide, thick cock back into my pussy. Soft, feminine flesh parts as he forces my insides to concede to him. I lock my hand in his hair and hold on.
“…handle more?” I’m so delirious with pain and pleasure that I don’t hear the first part of his question, but I don’t need to in order to know what he’s asking.
I nod my head rapidly. “Yes,” I say, squeezing my legs tighter around him as if that could stop him from pulling out of me again. “Yes. Give me everything.” I kiss his lips. Sink my tongue inside to twine it with his. He kisses me back, tasting of blood and rawness that I never thought would be so addictive. “Fuck me into the dark, Ruen,” I growl as his hips stutter in their movements. “Drive me to the brink of insanity and then drop me over the edge.”
Ruen’s head lifts, and for a moment, the crimson recedes the smallest bit, allowing the midnight color to resurface once more. Sweat drips down his straining throat, droplets falling from him to land on me.
We are not soft lovers, but two swords clashing. Violence and sparks flying off each other as we war for dominance. He drives me higher and higher into the darkness until the lights start to go out. Each star drowns under shadows as they crawl up over the stones of the room around us.
What little illumination is left on the window winks out of existence and I don’t know anymore if this is his illusion or my own darkness. All I know is that I cannot pull my eyes away from his and he keeps his eyes trained on me with each thrust.
Then, as his jaw clenches and I feel him pulse inside me, seeding me with his cum, Ruen reaches between us and pinches a thumb and forefinger over my clit, sending me into a shattering orgasm that steals the breath from my lungs.
His responding roar as he empties the last of himself inside me echoes in my ears as my heartbeat slows and the darkness completely descends for the last time.